Science Evidence Data and Digital Portfolio Annual Report 2024 - 2025

Marine Renewables and Ecology (MRE)

Headlines

• MRE advisors have led on the provision of scientific advice to 34 ScotMER projects. MRE presented and chaired a range of events at the 7th ScotMER symposium, where 1300 people registered from across 32 countries and included a range of audiences from industry, public bodies, academia and NGOs.
• MRE staff on the PrePARED project have caught and tagged 297 fish and deployed and recovered over 200 moorings used to detect fish. Deployed an additional 60 acoustic monitoring moorings with the PrePARED project to detect migrating salmon smolts leaving the river Wick.
• In collaboration with the University of Stirling, stomach contents of 90 salmon smolts were examined to determine the diet and feeding preferences of salmon smolts captured in the North Sea to provide a better understanding of their feeding ecology and progression through marine renewable energy developments.
• Our scientists chaired and coordinated the technical working group for the UK Cetacean Conservation Strategy.
• A total of 112 passive acoustic moorings have been deployed at 69 different locations across Scottish waters. Each mooring was equipped with an echolocation click detector and 84 also held a broadband acoustic recorder. This translates into 8301 days with click detector data (199,554 hours) and 8337 days with broadband acoustic data (200,088 hours).
• Through the ECOCHANGE project, MRE will lead collaboration with the University of Liverpool, the University of Glasgow and the Offshore Wind Evidence and Change Programme. Two ECOCHANGE sampling cruises have taken place, taking fish and benthic samples from within offshore wind farms.
• From April 2024 to April 2025, the MRE team successfully responded to 229 advice requests.
• MRE advisors have provided scientific advice for three offshore wind development appropriate assessments. MRE staff have been involved in at least twenty different cruises, eleven of which as the Scientist in Charge.

Key Work in 2024 - 25

1. Scientific support, research, evidence and advice on offshore windfarm, tidal stream and marine infrastructure projects.

Contributes to:

Technical components of Appropriate Assessments required for determinations of windfarm, tidal stream and marine infrastructure applications, adoption of project level compensatory measures that may be required for consent, continued improvement of assessment methodologies.

2. Scientific support, research, evidence and advice on species conservation and site designations, underwater noise and nature positive outcomes.

Contributes to:

Monitored and protected, enhancing the sustainability of marine ecosystems that support local communities and economies. The Scottish Seabird Conservation Action Plan and the UK Cetacean Conservation Strategy.

3. Scientific support, research, evidence and advice on marine renewables planning, the Iterative Plan Review for Offshore Wind, strategic compensatory measures and the Marine Recovery Fund, Scottish Marine Energy Research (ScotMER) programme research and receptor groups.

Contributes to:

Strategic Environmental Assessment of the Sectoral Marine Plan for Offshore Wind, including the use of the Cumulative Effects Framework to estimate effects on seabirds and marine mammals. Determining the requirement for plan level Compensatory Measures and the identification of suitable measures. Identification of critical knowledge gaps that are risks to planning and consenting of offshore windfarm and tidal stream development, addressing critical knowledge gaps identified via the ScotMER Programme.

4. Oil & Gas chemical permitting Contributes to:

Commercial contract for the assessment of oil and gas chemical usage supporting DESNZ and UKG commitments.

Case Study: Following Fulmars

Fulmar populations around Britain and Ireland have declined by 35% since the 1998-2002 census. Due to their long life spans (oldest recorded age is 45 years), long immature period and low lifetime breeding output, populations are vulnerable to pressures on adult survival. While Fulmar declines in the northwest Atlantic have been widespread, the colony at Tiree, Inner Hebrides, has not experienced the scale of decline seen elsewhere. Therefore, this project aimed to understand the year-round at-sea distribution of Fulmar from Tiree to:

I. Understand exposure to at-sea pressures.

II. Understand foraging movements and important habitats across the annual cycle.

GPS tags (high spatio-temporal resolution, short duration) and GLS tags (low spatio-temporal resolution, long duration) were deployed on fifteen Fulmar in July 2021. While GPS tracking was unsuccessful on this cohort, potentially due to tag failure, data were obtained from leg mounted GLS tags.

The tagging period spanned unusual events for the colony. In 2022, Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) became widespread amongst the UK’s seabirds, and due to restrictions in working within seabird colonies, GLS tags could not be retrieved from birds that had returned that summer. In 2023, Fulmars from the colony at which tags were deployed appeared to mostly take a sabbatical (non-breeding) year, which coincided with an exceptional marine heatwave in northwest Europe. Consequently, again, opportunities to retrieve GLS tags from birds attending the colony were few. In 2024 however, the ongoing Re-trapping Adults for Survival project based at the colony showed that adults absent in 2023 had returned, and the warden on the island was able to retrieve four of the 15 GLS tags, with a further three Fulmar with GLS seen at the colony. Tracking data downloaded from the four retrieved tags therefore encompasses two major disruptive events to Scottish seabirds, the outbreak of HPAI, and an unprecedented marine heatwave.

Only one west coast colony, Hirta, St Kilda, received effort (2012). Other colonies previously tracked have been in the northeast, in the Orkney and Shetland Islands, or on the east coast, and were largely collected over a decade ago.

To meet Scotland’s target of reaching net zero by 2045, offshore renewable option areas around Scotland’s seas are expanding into the north and the west. As a result, species not previously considered, such as Fulmar, may become more exposed to risks from disturbance, collision and displacement. This potential impact, particularly in the context of widespread Fulmar declines and the presence of additional anthropogenic pressures such as bycatch risk, plastic ingestion and climate change, means that a better understanding of Fulmar distribution at-sea is more important than ever.